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ISRAEL WITHDRAWING GROUND TROOPS FROM GAZA, via Griff Witte and Sudarsan Raghavan of The Washington Post: “Israel said Tuesday it was withdrawing all ground forces from the Gaza Strip at the start of an Egyptian-brokered 72-hour ceasefire intended to bring to a halt the nearly month-long war after multiple broken truces.

“The cease-fire, which took effect at 8 a.m. Tuesday, was agreed to late Monday night by both Israel and Hamas following talks in Cairo. It closely resembles previous proposals for an unconditional pause in a conflict that has left nearly 2,000 people dead — the overwhelming majority of them Palestinians.” http://wapo.st/1kk6GGk

MEANWHILE, ON THE HOME FRONT — OBAMA SIGNS IRON DOME BILL: President Barack Obama has signed into law the emergency appropriations bill providing an additional $225 million for Israel’s Iron Dome missile defense system — a measure the House and Senate passed at the last minute on Friday before leaving town for the long August recess. The funds are in addition to the $176 million requested by the White House for Iron Dome in its latest budget submission, along with $175 million added by Congress to help launch an effort to co-produce the system in the United States.

“The United States is proud that the Iron Dome system developed in coordination with Israel and funded by the United States has saved countless Israeli lives,” the White House said in a statement yesterday. “The United States has been clear since the start of this conflict that no country can abide rocket attacks against its civilians. The United States supports Israel’s right to defend itself against such attacks. We also continue to call on Israeli authorities to take all feasible precautions to prevent civilian casualties in Gaza.”

INDUSTRY INTEL — SOME F-35 RESTRICTIONS EXPECTED TO BE LIFTED BY FALL: The head of the Pentagon’s F-35 program has told a lawmaker that at least some of the flight restrictions stemming from a June engine fire will be lifted by early fall, a congressional aide tells Morning D. In recent weeks, Lt. Gen. Christopher Bogdan has visited Capitol Hill multiple times to brief House and Senate Armed Services staffers about the ongoing investigation into the cause of the fire, which occurred during an aborted takeoff at Eglin Air Force Base in Florida.

During one of his visits, he stopped by the office of Rep. Jim Moran, a senior appropriator who has been critical of the F-35 program and wrote to Bogdan last month to request a meeting. According to an aide to Moran, Bogdan assured the Virginia Democrat “that all issues related to the engine fire will be resolved and that the flight restrictions will be lifted by early fall.” But in a statement, Bogdan said he believes he was referring to the military’s roughly 20 test F-35s — not the entire fleet that also includes 81 operational aircraft. His office said flight restrictions won’t be lifted until the “root cause of the engine failure and the associated fix is identified.”

WELCOME TO MORNING DEFENSE, where we’re wishing a happy birthday to the Coast Guard, which turned 224 yesterday. Keep the tips, pitches and feedback coming to awright@politico.com, and follow us on Twitter @abwrig and @morningdefense

HAPPENING TODAY: Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel meets with the president and Vice President Joe Biden in the Oval Office at 4:45 p.m. The Pentagon chief then leaves for his nine-day trip to Europe, India and Australia. In Germany, he’ll be briefed at European Command headquarters on the situation in Ukraine. And in New Dehli, he’s meeting with Indian leaders and speaking at the Observer Research Foundation, an Indian think tank, according to Pentagon press secretary Rear Adm. John Kirby.

The Defense Department has been working for several years to strengthen its ties to India, even asking U.S. contractors last year to pitch ideas for co-production agreements with the Indian government and companies there. Hagel’s visit also comes ahead of newly installed Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s scheduled visit to the White House in September, when the president will seek to build a relationship with a man who was once barred from entering the United States for his handling of deadly Hindu riots against Muslims when he was chief minister of the Indian state of Gujarat (hat tip: The Wall Street Journal http://on.wsj.com/UQd0tu).

-- ALSO TODAY: Deputy Defense Secretary Bob Work speaks at the convocation ceremony for National Defense University in Washington.

-- AND … KENDALL TO DISCUSS ACQUISITION REFORM: Pentagon acquisition chief Frank Kendall is delivering the keynote at 9 a.m. at the AFCEA Defense Acquisition Modernization Symposium, at the Ronald Reagan Building in Washington. The theme of this year’s symposium is, "Better Buying Power: Do We Have it Right?" In his speech, Kendall plans to discuss “his perspective on historical efforts at acquisition reform, the current opinions and efforts and where we are headed,” a spokeswoman tells us. “He will discuss his approach of continuous process improvement and focus on the workforce and give an update on Better Buying Power 2.0 while previewing where he envisions the department going with BBP 3.0.”

Also speaking today at the event: former Undersecretary of Defense for Acquisition, Technology and Logistics Jacques Gansler, at 12:30 p.m., and Special Assistant to the Undersecretary of Defense for Acquisition Andrew Hunter, at 2:45 p.m.

TOP TALKER — MILITARY FACILITIES WILL NO LONGER BE USED TO HOUSE CHILD MIGRANTS, via POLITICO’s David Rogers: “Hoping to save money and political angst, the Obama administration is pulling back from using military facilities to provide temporary shelter for child migrants crossing the border from Central America.

“The Department of Health and Human Services said Monday that it will suspend these operations within the next two months, beginning with Fort Sill in Oklahoma as early as the end of this week. The two remaining facilities — Lackland Air Force Base in Texas and Naval Base Ventura County in California — are expected to [be] phased out over a two- to eight-week period. The military facilities have been a crucial but often very expensive stopgap for HHS in managing the crisis, in which the department was flooded with nearly 20,000 newly arrived children in the months of May and June alone.” http://politi.co/1snSsEV

-- Senate Armed Services top Republican Jim Inhofe praised the decision yesterday. “The announcement to close the UAC facility at Fort Sill is welcome news for the soldiers and various training missions on post,” the Oklahoma senator said in a statement. “Our military is already struggling to carry out the mission asked of them during a time when the administration is slashing defense budgets and failing to prioritize national security.”

FORMER DoD AND STATE DEPARTMENT OFFICIALS SAY THE WHITE HOUSE NEEDS TO DELEGATE: Former Pentagon and State Department officials have a message for the Obama administration: Stop handling so many foreign-policy issues inside the White House. In a story for Defense One, Gayle Tzemach Lemmon quotes a number of former officials saying the president should delegate more power to the career professionals.

“It is hard to handle the volume of what the world is throwing at the U.S. right now if everything has to go up to the most senior levels,” says Michèle Flournoy, CEO of the Center for a New American Security and former undersecretary of defense for policy. Adds former U.S. Ambassador to Syria Robert Ford: “When you only have 24 hours in the day, the White House can’t make all the decisions.” More here: http://bit.ly/1p5L2Gg

MAKING MOVES

-- SIXTH FLEET BOSS NOMINATED TO RUN FLEET FORCES COMMAND: Navy Vice Adm. Philip Davidson has been nominated for the rank of admiral and assignment as head of the U.S. Fleet Forces Command, in Norfolk, Va. Davidson is currently head of the Sixth Fleet and deputy commander of U.S. Naval Forces Europe and U.S. Naval Forces Africa. Davidson would succeed Adm. Bill Gortney, tapped to lead the U.S. Northern Command and NORAD.

-- NORTHROP GETS NEW TAX CHIEF: Northrop Grumman has named Talha Zobair as its vice president of tax. He joins the company from Raytheon, where he was senior tax counsel and director of global taxes. At Northrop, he’ll oversee the implementation of tax strategies, research of tax issues and compliance with regulatory filings.

SPEED READ

-- Russia has a battle-ready force at the Ukrainian border capable of invading with little or no warning. The New York Times: http://nyti.ms/1p6qEou

-- Lockheed Martin once again comes in at No. 1 on the Defense News list of the top 100 defense firms. http://goo.gl/5SN8Cs

-- An investigation into two deaths during a Navy training exercise in Virginia Beach reveals that one of the divers chose to die trying to save a fellow sailor rather than abandon him. The Virginian-Pilot: http://goo.gl/mLjzik

-- Air Force Academy Superintendent Lt. Gen. Michelle Johnson says she wants to make changes to her institution so that service members are adequately prepared for “asymmetric, unpredictable warfare that’s going to face us over the next decades.” Air Force Times: http://goo.gl/Fj9bge

-- Lebanon’s army battles ISIL insurgents in the Lebanese border town of Arsal, where refugees have fled to escape the civil war in Syria. The New York Times: http://nyti.ms/UNBQtY